I giggled and shook my head as I picked around at my Rueben sandwich. I hadn’t been feeling well for days. My heart hurt too much. I wanted to be engaged with Natasha. To be present with her and enjoy our lunch out. She was my best friend. The person who had known me the longest. And ever since she had her twins, we saw each other less and less. It was a miracle I could pull her away from that massive family of hers, but now I was regretting coming out.
All I wanted to do was curl up and go to bed.
“You look tired,” Catherine said. “Are you sleeping?”
“Are you going to pick apart my every feature?” I asked.
“She’s right,” Natasha said as she took a bite of her salad. “You do look tired. What’s wrong? Talk to us?”
“Did Ryan do something?” Catherine asked.
“Wait, you’re still seeing Ryan Aaron?” Natasha asked.
“I wasn’t seeing him. I was… spending time with him. But no, I’m not anymore,” I said.
“Uh oh. What did he do?” Catherine asked.
“Do I need to kill him? I know a very rich man who could bury him in a heartbeat,” Natasha said.
“Isn’t your husband friends with Ryan?” I asked. “Don’t do that. Don’t drag him into the middle of things that don’t concern him.”
“It concerns you, and I love you. So it concerns him,” Natasha said.
“Put your phone away. Stop it,” I said. “Look. Ryan and I had our fun and then we moved on. Simple as that. Did you guys expect any different from a man like him?”
“Not really,” Catherine said.
“But you’re different,” Natasha said.
“No, I’m not. And convincing myself I was only led to the same heartache I try to keep myself away from,” I said.
“So that’s why you’re not feeling well,” Catherine said. “You fell in love with him.”
“I did not.”
“Did too,” she said.
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t fall in love with that man,” I said.
“I told myself that for months, Emma. It’s okay if you fell in love with him,” Natasha said.
“Well, the difference here is you got your happy ending,” I said. “I don’t get that. Women like me don’t get that. So back off.”
“Yikes,” Catherine said. “There’s a mood for you.”
“You know, she’s acting just like I did when I was-”
My eyes panned up to Natasha’s and I watched her face fall.
“Uh oh.”
“What?” I asked.
“When you were what, Natasha?” Catherine asked.
My eyes dropped to my stomach and my mind started to swirl. Exhaustion. Mood swings. Headaches. A general sense of not feeling well.
“That’s not possible,” I said. “Nope.”
“What?” Catherine asked.
“Think about it,” Natasha said. “She’s tired. She’s irritable. She’s sick.”
“Oh shit,” Catherine said.
“No. That wouldn’t happen,” I said.
“Were you two using protection?” Natasha asked.
“Could you have asked that question any louder?” I asked.
“She’s right. You did kind of yell that at her face.” Catherine said.
“I’m sorry, but if there’s even a chance that you are, we drank wine last night. A lot of it,” Natasha said.
The mere idea of drinking while pregnant rose tears to my eyes.
Could I be? Was it possible I was pregnant? My hands began to tremble and my stomach started to roll. My headache got worse as tears wafted down my cheeks. Catherine scooted from the booth we were in and reached her hand out for mine, but when I didn’t move she grabbed it for me. She tugged at me until I was on my feet and Natasha was busy packing up our food in to-go boxes.
“Come on,” Catherine said. “We need a pharmacy now.”
Natasha paid for the bill and grabbed our food. We all poured out onto the street and Catherine continued to drag me behind her. We ducked into the first drug store we came across and I bought three different pregnancy tests. All digital, all with a great deal of accuracy, and all to be taken at the same time.
“Come on,” Natasha said. “I’ll drive.”
“But my car?” I asked breathlessly.
“It’s fine. We’ll come back for it. More important things are at stake.”
“What if it gets-?”
“I’ll pay for the damn towing bill then!” Natasha exclaimed. “Now come on.”
The ride back to my apartment was long. My hand kept migrating to my stomach, and I was disgusted with myself. I kept wishing I wasn’t pregnant. Hoping I wasn’t pregnant. The idea of being attached to a man like Ryan for the rest of my life made me want to sob. Tears streamed silently down my cheeks as Natasha zoomed through traffic, dodging in and out of cars while Catherine tumbled between car seats.
“Got enough shit back here?” Catherine asked.
“You try having two-year old twins,” Natasha said. “Going anywhere with them is like moving the damn house.”
The entire thing was a blur. Natasha skidding the car into a parking space. Grabbing the food. Catherine shoving me into the bathroom. I looked down at the tests as tears dripped onto the bathroom counter. My head ached and my entire body was physically exhausted. I was hungry, but not in the mood to eat. The smell of my favorite sandwich turned my stomach in ways I wasn’t ready to admit.
Because admitting that meant admitting something else.
I sat down on the toilet in a daze and did what Natasha instructed me to do from behind the door. I peed into a cup, unwrapped all the tests, and dunked them in. I looked over at my incredibly small tub and a hot bath sounded great. I cleaned myself up and peeled my clothes off, then turned on the water. I eased myself into the bath and drew my legs to my chest, then buried my face in my knees.
“Can we come in?” Natasha asked.
“I don’t care,” I said.
The door opened, and I squeezed my eyes shut. The water rose over my skin and steam filled my nostrils. I wanted to fly away. To eviscerate into thin air and metamorphose somewhere else. Into someone else. I felt Catherine’s hand come down onto my back and begin to rub. Slow, circular motions that reminded me of the last time Ryan and I had been together. His thumbs on the pads of my feet. His arms wrapped around my back. His lips against my neck and his body rolling into mine.
Rhythmically.
Steadily.
Like the strokes of Catherine’s hand.
“It’s time. Want me to look at them?” Natasha asked.
But I already knew.
I already knew what they said.
I sobbed into my knees and Catherine wrapped her arms around me. My nausea was getting worse. I heard Natasha kneel down at my side and reach her hand out for me. I heaved against them. Prepared myself for the sickness I knew was coming.
Then I pulled away from them and vomited into the bathtub.
“Here. It’s okay. I’ve got you,” Natasha said.
“We need to drain the tub,” Catherine said.
“Can you get me a towel? She’s shaking.”
“You think she can handle water?”
“It couldn't hurt. If she’s got some suckers anywhere, too, she might want one.”
“Towels. Water. Suckers. Got it. Drain the tub.”
“Already on it.”
I heard the drain guzzling the dirty water down and I opened my eyes. My eyes that were swollen with exhaustion. I saw the blurry vision of the pregnancy tests lined along the edge of the bathtub and I blinked my eyes. Forcing myself to look at the proof of what was happening.
All of them, lined up.
All of them, positive.
“What am I going to do?” I asked breathlessly.
Natasha helped me out of the bath and Catherine quickly wrapped me up in a towel.
“First of all, we need to get you to a doctor,” Natasha said. “Prenatal vitamins are key her
e if you’re going to keep the child.”
“Are you going to keep the child?” Catherine asked.
I felt my body teetering as a glass of water was thrust into my hand.
“Drink,” Natasha said.
I put the glass mindlessly to my lips and washed the terrible taste of bile from my mouth.
“No matter what, you need to get to a doctor,” Natasha said. “Do you have one we can call?”
“I drank last night,” I said with a whisper.
“Fetuses in their early stages are strong. I’m sure everything is okay. But we have to get you to a doctor, Emma.”
“Now?” I asked.
“The sooner, the better,” Catherine said.
I took another sip of water and pulled the towel tightly around my body.
“Okay,” I said.
“Catherine, can you look up the nearest Urgent Care around here?” Natasha asked. “I’ll help Emma get some clothes on.”
“Sure thing. I couldn’t find a sucker, though.”
“That’s fine. We can stop for some ginger candies or something on the way home,” Natasha said.
“Ginger?” I asked.
“It’ll help with your nausea. Trust me. Now come on. Let’s get you in your room, get some clothes on you, and get you in front of a professional.”
“Ryan,” I said with a whisper.
Everyone stopped and turned their eyes towards mine as I finally found my strength.
“What am I going to tell Ryan?” I asked.
Twenty
Emma
I didn’t know what to do. Every time a headache came on and every time I felt as if I could fall asleep at my desk, it was a reminder. I was pregnant with Ryan’s child. I chastised myself every chance I got. How could I have been so stupid? So blinded? So idiotic? The pill never worked one hundred percent of the time. How could I have been so trusting as to put the fate of my body and my future in the hands of a small pill I mostly remembered to take every morning?
Work was hard. Every time I looked at Zoey, I thought about him. Them. The kids and that apartment. The encounters I’d had with her uncle. I wondered if my child would look anything like Zoey since they would all be related. Maybe our child would have Zoey’s eyes. Or hair. Or her soft smile or her quiet demeanor. I put on the bravest face I could, even as Zoey asked me why I hadn’t come by to see her uncle.
To see her and the boys.
Catherine tiptoed around me. She dropped by my classroom more often to check up on me. I told her to stop doing it because people would start to wonder. And the last thing I needed was people talking behind my back. Lawrence Day was filled with children who went and talked to their parents, and they in turn talked to everyone else’s parents. I didn’t need people asking questions or students asking me if I was all right.
What I needed was to make a decision.
“You really should tell him,” Catherine said. “Especially if you’ve chosen to keep the baby.”
“I don’t know anything right now,” I said.
“Wait, so we’re still debating on-?”
“No, we’re not,” I said. “I’m keeping the child. I just don’t know what I’m going to do about that.”
“Okay. Well, at least you’ve made that decision.”
“What am I supposed to tell Ryan, anyway? I ended things with him, Catherine.”
“I thought you told me there was nothing to end.”
I shot her a look and she sighed.
“What happened, Emma?”
“Remember that field trip last week?”
“The one to the museum?” she asked.
“Yep. That’s the one.”
“What happened on the field trip?”
“Ryan was on a lunch date with some red-lipped woman in a tight black dress. At the same restaurant we took the kids to eat lunch.”
“He was not.”
“Yes, he was,” I said. “She was giggling at his jokes and putting her hand on top of his. And he didn’t move it. Not for a second. In fact, when Zoey ran up to him in the restaurant-”
“Oh, man. I would’ve loved to have seen the look on his face.”
“He stumbled over everything. His words. His own two feet. He introduced me as ‘just the teacher’ when she called him out on it.”
“Wait, what? Hold on. Who is ‘she’ and what did ‘she’ call who out on?” Catherine asked.
“I had to run over and practically pry Zoey off Ryan, right? Then the woman gives me the once-over with her eyes and straight up asked Ryan if I was some sort of love interest. I responded with a simple ‘no’ after he paused, figuring he didn’t want to divulge what was going on between us. But he said I was ‘just the teacher’.”
“What an asshole,” she said.
“And that’s why I’m having a hard time just ‘telling him’, Catherine. I ended things with him in that restaurant. He wanted to explain, but all guys want to explain. My ex in college wanted to explain. And I let him. And I almost went back to him for it. Had it not been for my roommate talking some sense into me, I probably would’ve done back and had my heart played with again.”
“Have you considered adoption?” she asked.
“I have. I’ve considered all my options over the course of the past few days. Abortion isn’t… I can’t imagine it. I’m not downing women who have to get them, because there are always circumstances that are exceptions. But I just don’t see this as one of them. And adoption. I don’t…”
Catherine reached over and took my hand as tears rose in my eyes.
“I don’t know if I could carry this child for nine months and then hand it over to someone else,” I said.
“The tears in your eyes already told me that.”
“I don’t know what to do, Cat,” I said breathlessly. “I ended things with him. I haven’t been taking his calls. I haven’t been returning his texts. He was with another woman. Flirting with her. Dining with her. And she was gorgeous, Cat. Plump lips and long legs and a thin frame. Smoky eyes and soft hair and… and all of those things I’m simply not.”
“He’s a jackass,” she said. “No one’s doubting that. But that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t know what’s going on with you. It took two of you to make that child you’re growing, and as much as it sucks, he does have a right to know as the father. He is the father, right?”
“Fuck you.”
“Just checking,” she said as she held her hands up. “And I like the feisty language.”
“I haven’t had much time for restraint the past few days.”
“It was hard for Natasha, too. You know, to tell her boo-boo about the fact that she was pregnant.”
“Yeah, well. Natasha knew in the back of her mind that her husband loved her. Ryan and I, we were nothing but a fling.”
“Are you sure about that?” she asked.
“Are you really trying to convince me now, after warning me and freaking me out with his entire reputation, that we were something more than a fling?”
“I’m very familiar with Ryan Aaron’s reputation. We all are. And everyone knows he doesn’t go back. Ever. He gets with a woman, and that’s it. He recycles them like water bottles. But he didn’t do that with you, Emma. He kept going back time and time again. And not just with romantic things. But other things, too. Like when the kids were sick.”
“And the Friday pizza nights,” I said.
“All I know is that’s not like the Ryan Aaron the public knows. And I think that should be taken into consideration.”
“You really are a terrible friend sometimes.”
“I try my best,” she said with a grin.
“So you think I should tell him.”
“I think you should.”
“What if he wants to help or something? You know, try to take custody from me?” I asked.
“I think he’s got his hands full with three kids right now. If anything, he’ll be relieved that there’s someone else to help. Hopefully.”
The entire week dragged on like that. Catherine would stop by my room and have lunch with me, somehow working whether or not I’d told Ryan into the conversation. And every time, I’d tell her ‘no’. Because I hadn’t. I didn’t know how to. I’d dodged his calls to a point where he wasn’t calling anymore. He wasn’t texting anymore. He wasn’t leaving voice messages anymore. And by Thursday night, I was exhausted. I used my lunch break to take a nap at my desk and didn’t wake up until the kids came running back into the classroom. Between the nausea in the mornings and the utter exhaustion that chiseled away at my body throughout the day, I was in bed by six in the afternoon and dead asleep ten minutes later.
But I couldn't do that Thursday night.
There was a school meeting that required as much attendance as possible.
“Ready for the meeting?” Catherine asked.
“Is that decaf coffee you’re offering me?” I asked.
“Yep. I know how this baby thing goes. I might not have any of my own, but I’m very familiar with what pregnant women can and can’t have.”
“I figured, with the way your sister keeps pumping out children,” I said.
“She just announced her fifth pregnancy.”
“See? That’s a hard pass for me.”
Catherine giggled as I took the coffee from her.
“What time is this meeting again?” I asked.
“It’s in ten minutes. Right at six.”
“And how long is it supposed to run?”
“No more than an hour?”
“So at least an hour and a half.”
“Right,” she said.
“I’m going to fall asleep and start snoring. I know it,” I said.
“You snore?”
“No clue. But after tonight, I’ll know if I do or don’t.”
I leaned back into my chair and took a sip of the mocha goodness my friend had brought me.
“How was the nausea this morning?”
“Terrible. I didn’t eat breakfast and inhaled my lunch so I could nap.”
“Want to try and get some dinner after this meeting?” she asked.
“No. I need to go home and sleep. I still have Friday before I can faceplant for the weekend and not move from my bed.”
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